


Heartbreak Does Yurt

by stardustinoureyes



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Comfort, Heartbreak, implied pike/vex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-02 20:25:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11516808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustinoureyes/pseuds/stardustinoureyes
Summary: Ignore the pun in the title, I couldn't help myself.After stopping in Terra for the night, Pike finds that her feelings are catching up to her.





	Heartbreak Does Yurt

**Author's Note:**

> I like exploring moments that the character could be having that we, the audience, don't get to see. (Plus, unless Pike is in love with Grog, which I highly doubt, she has some heartbreak to work through, and the way I see it, I have a 25% chance of being right about who, so...)

Pike woke with a start, a scream on her lips, the fear still clutching her chest. She breathed heavy, trying to shake the last scraps of the dream from her mind. Try as she might though, one image stuck with her, bursting bright across her eyelids whenever she closed her eyes. Vex, at the top of the tower, defiant one moment and then gone the next. Her eyes going from a bright and vibrant green, like the forests around Syngorn, to a dull and lifeless one. Thinking about it made the fear in her chest squeeze a little tighter; made her breath come shallower for a moment. She drew her knees to her chest, and hugged herself into a small ball for a minute, willing herself to calm down. 

Around her, the world still turned. She could hear the soft, ever-present rumbling sound of Terra, changing and moving. Things were always changing, and lately they seemed to be moving on without her. “She is my betrothed,” he’d said, the sound now echoing in her ears. A small sob escaped her lips, the first sound of the night, as her chest ached with a hallow pain. 

She wasn’t quite sure how much time passed, only that she was pulled up from her misery by a soft knock on the side of her yurt. “Pike? Are you alright?” a soft and melodious voice called out to her.

Pike sat up in bed and wiped at her eyes with her dress shirt. “Uhh, yes, I’m fine.”

“Can I come in?”

Pike bit her lip. “Uhh, yeah. Sure.”

The heavy cloth door moved aside, as a small gnomish figure walked inside. “Do you want to talk about it?” Scanlan asked, his brow drawn with worry. She opened her mouth to answer, but no words would come. She closed it, tried again, and still nothing. Scanlan moved towards the bed, and sat next to her. “Was it a nightmare?”

She nodded, moving to hug her knees again. “Well, yes and no.”

“What do you mean, yes and no?”

Pike sighed, her chest somehow both heavy and empty, a contradiction of feelings. “How do you get over someone who doesn’t love you?”

“Oh, Pike,” Scanlan said, turning towards her. “Everyone loves you.”

She shakes her head. “Everyone thinks I’m cute and everyone might love me, but not in the right way.”

“I see,” he said, looking towards the ground. 

“I’m sorry, Scanlan, I know this has to be awkward for you.”

He shakes his head and clears his throat, with an almost imperceptible sound. “I always thought you might have your eye on someone else.”

Pike blushes and suppresses a sad snort. “Yeah, you could say that.” She paused to run a hand through her white-blonde hair. The blue was starting to fade from it now, but they seemed so far away from that beach. So far away from that life. 

“Well, who is it?”

“It doesn’t matter now.”

“Oh, so Percy or Vax then?”

Pike shook her head. Scanlan’s brow furrowed for a moment. “Keyleth?” Pike shook her head again, a blush already beginning to form on her cheeks as Scanlan put the final pieces together. “Vex,” he breathed, more of a statement than a question.

Pike covered her face in her hands. “She’s just so pretty, and kind and awesome and talented and she DIED, Scanlan. Again. And then we went to Pelor’s, and I lied. I said I loved her like a sister, but it’s not true. I love her, Scanlan, and I have for awhile, but everyone was standing there looking at me and I couldn’t say it, not with Percy right next to me,” she said, the tears already flowing down her face as she took a break to try to force air into her lungs. Her voice was already catching, already threatening to give her away. “And then- and then he said they were betrothed.” As she finished a sob broke loose, and she fell towards the bed.

Scanlan caught her, his own eyes filled with a certain amount of sadness and understanding. They sat there for a moment, Pike letting her feelings flow while Scanlan just held her. Once upon a time, a little less than a year ago, he would have taken a certain amount of pleasure in the fact that he had less competition for Pike’s affection, but he was a different gnome now. A gnome that believe that Pike, out of all of them, deserved every happiness the world could offer. 

But what could he say to her? He didn’t know what could make this any better. In his experience, heartbreak was just a fact of life, something that sucked, but ultimately, couldn’t be avoided. Sure, he could quote cliches at her like, “it’s better to have loved and lost then to have never loved at all,” or “there are plenty of fish in the sea.” But what good would that do? Those things only made sense after the heart had some time to heal. 

So, Scanlan held her to his chest, stroked her hair and hummed a gently lullaby as Pike’s tears helped cleanse away her hurt. It wouldn’t be gone, after this, he knew. But it would help.


End file.
